Monk's Spade

In the north west provinces, the locals used an odd design for their shovels. The blade part is a flat 12” (30 cm) cast iron half circle with a small extension in the back to facilitate mounting on the handles. Like many farming items, they were adapted to be used as weapons by those who had them and had no others.

Full Item Description
A monk’s spear is a more martial version of this basic farm tool. The monks, always wary of attacks from the local governments, barbarians, or even bandits, might of even used these spades (or ones like them) as actual farm tools. However, most of these spades are really weapons. The head is still cast iron, with a decorated brass fitting added onto extension to facilitate more secure fastening. The curved edge is extremely sharp. What would of been the straight side of the half circle is curved to allow for hooking and cuffing with the weapon. The shaft is a good six and a half feet long. The back end of the weapon has a crescent blade with brass decorative mounting. The entire weapon weighs about 35 lbs (15 Kgs). It requires a good deal of strength, stamina, and speed to wield this weapon properly. However its reach and its mass can make it quite effective.

History
The Monks are not supposed to be armed. The Government has always seen the Monk’s views of equality of all souls as a threat to the tiered system. That plus their use of martial arts and yoga always made the military nervous. The spade, being both a weapon and a tool, allow the Monks to protect themselves and dig.

Magic/Cursed Properties
None. This is a perfectly normal weapon.

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Okay. I did some research on this a while ago, and of course promptly forgot to post any of this.

The story I associated with my piece seems to be one of the "accepted" reasons for the piece, yet upon review, historically, the reason it existed was not this one.

The Monk Spade is a weapon associated with Buddhist monks and those of the Northern Shaolin Sect. While used as a weapon by a travelling monk, it was also used for ceremonial and symbolic purposes. One of the stated uses was for a travelling monk to give a proper burial to anyone they found dead on the road. They also used it for other ritual funuary purposes. The tool became "standard travelling gear" for any Buddhist monk travelling in China for a time, even if they were not martially trained.

The basic idea actually predates The Great Temple.

There are pieces made entirely of bronze (shaft and heads) which weigh our 35 lbs in Chinese museums. Like the Green Dragon Crescent Moon Swords, but the halberd versions, they are weapons of "historical mythology", saying men of greath strength weilded them. There are other pieces which use metal reinforced wood, plus a metal head (bronze/ iron/ steel). These run in the 15-20 lbs/ 7-10 Kgs. Modern ones, which are made more for show than damage and available from many martial arts supply houses, run from 2 to 5 Kgs depending on the manufacturer.

Reality is always stranger than fiction. It is one of those odd little details that would take us quite a bit of time and creative working through to come up with. Still, adapting reality elements to games creates things sooo odd that you have to edit them out because they are often sooo random or off nobody would believe them.

Link Backs

The devil's wind. Explains why people become crazy. They are caught up in this wind which steals their sanity which in turn feeds the wind. The wind is a leftover from when the air elementals banded together in a mass army at one point to attack the True Gods. The wind is leftover of their attack route and on the anniversary of the battle the wind sweeps through causing the madness.